


(where i'm going) in the sunshine of your love

by newyorktopaloalto



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Arc Reactor, Bucky and the Winter Soldier are the same person, Canon Divergence - Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Canon-Typical Violence, Comic Book Science, Developing Relationship, Emotions, FRIDAY is badass, Guns, Hurt Tony Stark, M/M, Minor Character Death, Mutant Tony Stark, Mutants, Near Death Experiences, No split personality, POV Bucky Barnes, POV Tony Stark, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Post-Civil War, Pre-Relationship, Rescue Missions, Tony Stark Still Has Arc Reactor, Violence, Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes, Winteriron Reverse Bang 2018
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-21
Updated: 2018-10-21
Packaged: 2019-07-28 08:15:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,684
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16237670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/newyorktopaloalto/pseuds/newyorktopaloalto
Summary: Tony Stark has been kidnapped and James is willing to do anything to get him back; letting his experience as the Winter Soldier guide him through a HYDRA safehold was the only logical choice—Tony Stark needed to be saved and, call it selfish, James wanted to be the one to do it.[Post Civil-War, but there's not actually much talk of it.]





	(where i'm going) in the sunshine of your love

**Author's Note:**

> This is for the WinterIron Reverse Bang 2018! Thank you so much to sopherfly for letting me put a fic to her absolutely amazing [art](https://sopherfly.tumblr.com/post/179275058850/my-art-for-the-winteriron-bang-2018#notes), which inspired me to do a fic I never thought I would—a non-bitter post!CW. 
> 
> This fic was crazy to write, man—I've never written primarily from Bucky's POV, and in a fairly canonical MCU fic at that. Things that are not MCU: mutants, and some IM3 stuff. I really did try to stay as close to MCU as possible, which was super tough for me because I'm always throwing other universe stuff into my work, jeez. I also know it's popular in the fandom to have Bucky and the Winter Soldier be two disparate personalities, akin to having DID, but I kind of like having the soldier 'personality' as something that's always there, just usually not present. 
> 
> I have a violence warning set for this, but if you'e read my mafia!AU, it's not as bad as that, so... But Bucky is a little, well, Winter Soldier-y. 
> 
> I don't own Marvel, its characters, or anything relating to MCU, and the quotes used are attributed to their source. Any small jokes that you think might be jokes probably are, because I put terrible jokes in all my fics and no one ever gets them, lol. Oh, and the title is (obviously) from Sunshine of Your Love by Cream. 
> 
> Hope you enjoy, and thank you for reading!

_The walls were whispering._

_Blinking, attempting to shake away the fuzziness from both his sight and his mind, he tried to take in his surroundings. The complete blackness didn't do much to help orient him but, were he honest with himself, he expected nothing less—these days, it was hard to get the jump on him, and yet here he was—there was no point in getting a hold of him only to immediately squander their advantage by giving him too much leeway. He shook his head, hard, and held in a breath, listening for the sounds of other breaths, of someone else here in this—feeling the cool, vague dampness of the wall behind him, he assumed it was some sort of underground or mountainous terrain—room with him; when he brought his hand up to his nose to sniff the liquid, the absence of any discerning scent didn't help him in any manner or capacity._

_No breathing, just the whispering walls. He cocked his head, trying to decipher where, exactly, the voices were coming from. Sidling along the wall after testing his limbs for any sort of chains or incapacitating devices, the obvious necessity of light only occurred to him after all the fingers of his left hand got smashed against some sort of corner or structure he had no previous awareness of. His own breaths, now the only things making any sort of discernible sounds—the whispering walls slowly but surely having been turned into the ventilation through the building carrying the voices of whoever his captors were—echoed unnaturally loud in his ear._

_He needed a source of light, but he didn't know if it was worth it to reveal this particular trick to the people undoubtedly watching him—at the same time, though, he couldn't imagine that his kidnappers hadn't stripped him bare at some point during his hours unconscious to check for any and all devices that could help him escape; a shiver of revulsion shook his spine for a minute and he tried not to gag at the thought of what they had done when he was unawares. But it didn't matter— not now, not ever—it only mattered that he got out. The Accords wouldn't stop his rescue, the necessity of special provisionary guidelines in place for situations such as this; Rhodes, of course, and his years of wrangling being the main cause of it passing through the Council with an ease he could never hope to achieve—there had been too many disagreements, too many failed coups with him for the Council to ever give him their full commitment in any motive or matter, regardless of its blatant need and desire._

_So, between a rock and a hard place, he took the only way that he could foresee doing him any good in getting out of this situation relatively intact—he didn't hope or fully intact, not anymore, not for years now._

_Stripping his shirt, his undershirt, and the mid-drift shirt he never told anyone he wore, he found the rim of the arc reactor with an ease borne from clutching at his chest more times than he could ever count in this exact motion—it was different now, harder to crack and easier to control since his turn with bio-augmentation, the Cradle, Ultron, Siberia, but fundamentally still the same._

_With a switch and two clicking turns, a light shone from the reactor, the nano-casing turning clear at the biophysical command. A soft blue shone out of his chest and he blinked, his eyes taking a moment to adjust to the now soft-lit room—in another circumstance the lighting might be considered mysteriously romantic, but he just found it unsettling._

_The room was small, eight by ten feet for about eight feet up, tapering into a narrower mouth where something had previously been attached to its walls; the door was on the ceiling, whatever ladder having been there before stripped to the holes where it had been bolted into the concrete._

_He was in a fucking oubliette._

_Almost hysterically, the image of David Bowie in tight pants with goblins surrounding him overtook his mind—he never regretted remembering the eighties until this moment, no matter what he had said through the entirety of the nineties and early aughts._

_Tony, for everything he had accomplished in his life, had never imagined the situation in which he had to escape from an oubliette with—another glance around the room revealing nothing helpful upon superficial recognition—absolutely nothing at his immediate disposal that would prove helpful._

_Which was, you know, absolutely what he intended when he began the day—not like he had anything more important to do with his life than figure out how to get un-kidnapped. At least, with this nonsensical situation more or less parsed out, his head felt a little more on his shoulders, a little less like he would faint the moment he stood up and took a more thorough examination of his surroundings._

_How in baby Jesus' name was he expected to get out of this? He might have been the real life MacGyver, but even Richard Dean Anderson couldn't make something out of nothing. Or whatever other platitude Tony would have to tell himself in order to do keep going, damn it, because if he didn't, well, Danvers and the rest only had so many people at their disposal, and it felt disingenuous to imagine that anyone other than a select few would try very hard to actually find out his whereabouts; not that he doubted they would try to find him, just that he had always gotten himself out of situations before, so why not this time?_

_He stood up, taking a closer look at the walls around him. Why not, indeed? The oubliette was connected somewhere else, because he had heard them through the vents—there was a way out, he just had to get there._

* * *

“Missing?” Steve's tone usually never held that certain level of incredulity until a situation was so far beyond his usual scope that he was bound dumb, stuck repeating what little information he knew until something else made sense; James, keeping his gait steady enough to blend in with the background ambiance until he situated himself in a place where he could unrepentantly listen in on the half conversation Steve was employed in—by the other man's erratic pacing, the conversation he had been engaged in for awhile. 

“But how is he missing?” Steve asked, and whatever reply came from the other end of the phone must have done little to nothing to assuage whatever warpath James knew Steve was currently gearing himself up for—slowly but surely regaining memories seemed to be nothing but the devil's work, but he couldn't deny that insider knowledge of the former leader of the Avengers had come in handy more than a few times over the last two years they had been back in America, James unfrozen and the atmosphere between two disparate teams coming together after a pardoning demonstration nothing less than palpably awkward. 

He inched closer to the frame of the door, a decision still hovering over his motions as he wondered whether his free afternoon of catching up on trivial nonsense superseded being a decent person and helping out whoever was on the other end of that phone—at least to get them away from Steve's persistence for a minute or two as he assessed the situation fully. After another minute of waffling—and after more than seventy years of doing nothing for hours with mind-numbing focus as he kept an eye out for a flicker of motion, James was more than a little adept at taking a moment to evaluate all of his options fully, clearly, when given the appropriate time to consider them—he decided that getting to the bottom of whatever this was, _was_ more important than the list he and FRIDAY had made up for him on things he had missed. Shrugging into himself, clearing away everything except easy brashness, a self-assured quirk of the lips up and ready to go before his progress was sorely interrupted by Steve's half-shouted answer to whatever the other person had finished saying, an aggravated “well fuck _that_ ” to what was hopefully an already disconnected call, and a sharp crack as Steve's phone hit the wall with what James was sure was terrifying force, followed by the dull 'thud' of the phone falling, unharmed, to the carpeted floor. 

“FRIDAY, why was I not informed of this situation?” It was clipped, James could see the stiffening of his shoulders in his tone alone, and he decided to just get over himself and stride into the room, breezy as though he hadn't been eavesdropping for the last few minutes. Steve was half leaned against the conference table, a hand rubbing the back of his neck as he glared, half-hearted, at the ceiling. 

“As the current leader of the Avengers, Captain Danvers has been fully appraised of the situation,” FRIDAY responded, pausing for a moment before adding, needling, “I think that's why she set up a meeting for everyone—keep 'er team fully informed; she and Colonel Rhodes have been making plans until everyone can get 'ere. 

“Hi'ya, Jimothy, you're here early.” 

Steve swung around, his kidney hitting the edge of the table as he turned to face James fully. “Hey'ya, Bucky.” 

“Hey Steve,” James nodded, his gaze going from Steve's own to the point on the floor where his cell phone had been thrown, to the holographic map on the wall showing three separate red dots blinking in the tri-state area. “What's goin' on?” 

It was directed to the both of them, James knowing that FRIDAY would give him more information than Steve could, but still hesitant to actually exclude the other man from their conversation—there was still a lingering tenderness that turned into a prickling anger in Steve at the fact that he had not been re-named leader of the Avengers after their return from being on the lam, and James had no intention of making his aggravation worse by reminding him of what he didn't know compared to others in the room, compared to even James himself. 

“Tony!” Steve replied as though that was all he had to say, which, while a vehemently frenzied decleration, didn't actually answer anything James wanted answered. 

Steve's expression, half anguished, half faltering, all agonizingly stubborn, brought James up short and the other man's exclamation turned around in his brain, trying to make itself into some other sort of sense that wasn't what he was thinking of. 

“Tony is missing?” James asked, almost unable to find it within himself to actually believe the obvious until Steve nodded, miserable and more than a little contrite—James neither wanted nor needed to untangle that knot of emotions that Steve placed onto Tony Stark, but knew that that complication colored every interaction the two men had with one another, at least on Steve's end of the rope. 

James, despite knowing that FRIDAY did not exist in the ceiling, found himself looking up at it in order to impose his will into her saying what was actually going on. 

“Captain Danvers will have to explain particulars to ya at the emergency meeting,” FRIDAY piped in from where she had seen James' surprisingly baleful face. “Sorry, Jimothy, it's more than a little classified 'til she does somethin' 'bout it.”

“I understand,” James responded promptly, not understanding at all on a very selfish level, but entirely so on a professional one. The relationship between Tony and himself was nebulous, a lingering closeness that James was more than certain wasn't healthy in any manner. The thing between them diminished his lung capacity by about 15 percent every time they found themselves in a room with one another, able to talk normally and endearingly after a—deserved, but harrowing—period of a awkwardness lasting a year and a half; the last half year of that, in James' own opinion, consisted of less bad awkwardness and more of the blushing type—sometimes, in the dead of night with only he and FRIDAY whispering amidst the wires and lights of a supply box on level 3 he had found while going through the motions of disassociating while walking down what would have otherwise been a perfectly normal hallway, but the light had, for some reason, triggered a memory and FRIDAY had been there and noticed his increased rate of everything and intervened, sometimes he then imagined that Tony's awkwardness held an equivalency to James' own. 

“When is the meeting?” he continued, not having put his cell into his pants that morning due to the simple but undeniable fact that he had never gone to sleep the night before. “I'll wait here.” 

“Soon, Buck, but you don't have to be part of it,” Steve answered assuredly, whatever he was going to say next stopping itself in his mouth as James stalked over to a seat, pulled it out, and sat down. “Or you can, that's up to you—I didn't know you were ready to get into the Avengers business.” 

James considered saying something spurious, something so designed to make Steve happy that the man wouldn't dare question James' reasonings or actions in the next couple of hours, but found himself unwilling to pretend, even for the time it took to get out of here and get on the road, that he was willing to do anything more to Avenge than the second tier backup he had agreed to at the end of his so-called parole. 

“No, but I am willing to save Tony Stark.” 

Steve opened his mouth, and James interrupted him before the man could say something that he would undoubtedly regret within the next few minutes, when his brain had time to catch up to his mouth. 

“I've signed the Accords—I'll do what I can for this mission, if they need me.” 

“Your willingness is appreciated, Sergeant Barnes and might, in fact, be apropos for the mission.” 

He and Carol Danvers exchanged a nod, and in her presence, James felt the ingrained need to stand more at attention than usual, spine straightening sightly as she stood at the head of the table, arms behind her back at attention, and shot a small smile in his direction, as though reading his thoughts. 

“We'll get started soon—Hope can't get here for another hour, but the less time wasted in waiting, the more we can already have done once she gets her.” 

“We also know what her expertise consists of,” James agreed, watching as Steve took the seat to Carol's immediate left. 

“Indeed.” 

She sat down and busied herself with whatever was on her tablet, leaving Steve to glance awkwardly from where she was fixated on her equipment to James, who had appropriated one of the free consoles strewn through the conference room and was, with FRIDAY's help, already combing through every database he was allowed access in—and a couple of databases that Tony had surreptitiously lent him access to around the third time he had shown up on the comms while they were fighting, becoming, as the Spiderkid put it, a man in a chair with the help of an AI.

* * *

“I do not believe that Stark would willingly throw confusion onto his biological signs.” 

“Unless it was to disrupt something else, or if he thought there was good reason to.” 

“I'm just putting it out there that—” 

“You've put it out there three times in the last four minutes, Barton, and none of those times made the idea pertinent.” 

“Have you considered—” 

“—couldn't say it would be the worst plan in the world, but that still leaves—” 

“Why these three points?” 

“—and I don't notice _you_ doing anything about it, do I? But why would I expect to, Mr. 'I'm-oh-so-righteous—”

“But scrambling his signal would mean death, especially if these kidnappers were efficient enough to actually take Stark by surprise.” 

“Is that a note of admiration? Well slap me around my knee and call me fuckin' chartreuse, because hell has frozen over.” 

“I am more than capable of realizing my mistakes, Colonel, as I am not a _child_ , regardless of members in this group who would claim otherwise.” 

“I have not found any current significance, Jimothy.” 

“Can we not have this argument now? It seems more than a little—” 

“Captain Rogers, your pacing will help no one and, in fact, seems to be doing more psychological harm than good, so if you could cease your motions and offer something concrete to the situation, we would be more than obliged to listen.” 

“I think I could help Mr. Stark—infiltrate in with the enemy and—”

“We don't know who the enemy is, Spiderling, let alone how _you_ could reasonably fit in with them.” 

“What do the three bio-points have in common?” 

“I can only think when I pace, so you telling me not to, Vision, actually cuts off any ideas I might have.” 

“Why aren't the Defenders here? Or are they too good for this? Barnes is here and he's less of an Avenger than they are.” 

“In common?” 

“Do you know of any spell that could help locate Stark? Or can you make a portal?” 

“That's not how portals work.”

“I mean, if they _do_ have something in common—it just seems like there's a pattern.”

“I still think he's hiding away for a reason and is actually fine.” 

“Okay, but he would have contacted one of us, if not just FRIDAY. Which reminds me, FRI did you pick up on—”

“I think there's an indication on this map if you—”

“I'm not finding anything, currently...” 

“—would have said something in the first place if it weren't for that goddamn—” 

“I can talk to Wong, but it might be more appropriate to rely on other methods in order—” 

“I know his location.” 

“—just as much right as the rest of us to be here, and it's highly telling that you're questioning that for _only_ —”

“I believe that Mr. Stark would employ some sort of beacon, were he able to transmit such over any broadcast or medium.” 

“Thank you, Vis, that was exactly the point I was making.” 

“—can actually do what they want, they're technically their own separate group who are sometimes on loan to us in dire circumstances.” 

“And this doesn't—?” 

“—Hope might be able to help? She has location technologies that aren't—” 

“What did you say?” 

“—my friend who is like a total tech _wiz_ could help if FRIDAY would—” 

“—access to Stark's lab would be more than helpful; does anyone have override codes or do—” 

“I do, but I'm not going to let _you_ into his—” 

“I know where he is. FRIDAY?”

“—now? This is worse than when we all first—” 

“This is indicative of how we've never been a good fit, I'm just saying this now.” 

“I can't believe anything has ever managed to get done without Stark here to—” 

“Gaining access to the systems...” 

“I know what you're going to say, but I really do think this might be a case of—”

“I do know, and you're still wrong! Actually, riddle me this, dumb-ass, when you put two—” 

“Do we have to get personal, or can we just focus on—” 

“...now. Accessing relevant security feeds.” 

Danver's sharp whistle brought the sound in the conference room to a halt—James couldn't help but imagine a needle tearing a scratch into a record—and, one by one, the gaggle gathered around the conference table turned to look at her. 

“How do you know this is accurate?” 

James watched every single head in the room volley from Danvers to him as she raised an eyebrow and gestured, indolent on anyone other than her, to his hand on the holoscreen that was currently blinking in the corner of the room. 

“If you want somethin' logical, I don't have it,” James shrugged, straightening his spine against the weight of everyone staring, incredulous, at what he was saying. “I saw where the points were, and I saw what was in the area, and I just had the feeling that I had been there before.” An image flashed through his head as he watched as FRIDAY's data-feeds showed them a cyclical rotation of all nearby cameras. “There's levels underneath the ones on a blueprint. They should have camera feeds, but they might be un-networked.” 

“They're on the network, but I cannae access live feeds until the camera is physically turned on. Smart fail safe—labor intensive on their part, but smart.”

The mood in the room shifted as a black screen, courtesy of FRIDAY, popped up on the holo. “It'll go live when the camera is turned on, ladies and men, but until then, here's the pertinent plans t'the building.” 

“I'll look them over, but they won't be accurate.” 

It didn't take all that long for James to decide—a look at Danvers, a glance around the room, a mental projection of having had been there better than any blueprint, acquired by FRIDAY or otherwise—that the only reasonable course of action was to retrofit his own knowledge of the situation with that of what it would take to ensure the successful extraction of Tony Stark. The logical conclusion of that line of reasoning ended with James extracting Tony Stark, himself. 

The room turned to look at him once more, but this time, being wholly more prepared—more than a little disassociated from the situation as a whole, ready to click into whatever mindset was needed for the particulars of this mission, happily, extrication from the nuances of his own self that still managed to plague his thoughts—he endured it with a long-suffering hard won by years of being looked at like a particularly challenging science project, and not in the good way like Tony had: on the occasions James felt comfortable enough to actually penetrate the secret hideout that was Tony's lab, and was looked at with what he could discern as nothing less than the sparked challenge of a bright curiosity followed by a quiet agreeableness that had never been like anything his biologically experimental body and mind had been used to. 

“My going in alone makes the most sense.”

He answered the unasked question before another ten minutes were wasted arguing with proverbial brick walls, all the while making lists in his mind of what he would need to bring with him, what would be considered overkill, and what would be considered _overkill_ overkill and thus most likely to be eliminated from usage. 

“I know the layout intimately, and for the way the building is run, the more people, the more obvious those people are, the less likely it will be that a successful extraction is possible.” 

“Other people can do it, Bucky, you just have to give them what they need to know.” 

He turned to look at Steve, then at the pursed set of Colonel Rhodes' lips, at Peter Parker—whose name James had just been entrusted with a couple of months ago—then the hard set of the Widow's mouth, Barton, and shrugged. “Give me someone who's better at stealth missions, has all the necessary skills to kidnap someone from kidnappers, and that Tony trusts more than me, and I'll step down.” 

“Bucky—”

“Unless someone can give a substantive reason for Barnes not to be the one to do this mission, I am in full agreement with his assessment of the situation. It's the most realistic option of any of the ones that have been bandied about.”

Danvers turned to face Rhodes and Steve, an eyebrow raised with an archness that belied her expectation of their agreement—it was the best plan, but the hours that might be wasted if they had their stubbornness let rein could only be detrimental to the time James _could_ have in solidifying and implementing his mission parameters. The both of them must have been aware of what the look meant—James didn't quite want to think about Rhodes' blush and where that was going to end up—because Steve nodded, terse and darting half-pleading glances in James' direction. 

“I'm not the one with a problem,” Rhodes stated easily, his parade rest only slightly hindered by the tense line of his shoulders—he wasn't okay with it, wouldn't be unless it was Rhodes, himself, going in after his best friend, and James understood, but he also knew that while Rhodes had his strengths, this sort of mission was not one of them—and James tried to give off the sort of vibe that was confident in what he was about to do and not at all like he was turning into another person at every moment spent preparing. 

Someone cleared their throat, and Danvers made an about-face to stare at the rest of the group, shuffling awkwardly and trying to make themselves as inconspicuous as possible—most of them, in any case, if Barton's overly-loud breathing and Strange's idle portal making, enthralling the kids with the tiny frogs he pulled through every time, were ignored as parts of their intrinsic selves. 

“Dismissed,” she barked, and it didn't take long for most of the room to scatter away, most of them, James was sure, glad that they had avoided anything more than a couple of wasted hours and a headache. 

The ones James expected to remain, remained, but he ignored them in favor of cajoling FRIDAY into opening up a window for him to read the tablet proffered to him by Danvers, smoke, and think. 

“You shouldn't smoke in here,” Maximoff argued, a platitude if James ever heard one, and he almost offered her a smoke just to see the look on all of their faces when she, undoubtedly, took him up on the offer. 

“It helps me think,” he replied easily, snapping his fingers for a spark and lighting it with that. “Okay, so I'm going to need someone on the other side of a comm in order to feed me through the patrols—I don't know what'll happen if they get wind of something going on.” 

"O' course," FRIDAY chirruped easily, and James say Rhodes' mouth twist into a straighter line than he believed possible. "Sorry, Colonel, I have main feed access—can shave off seconds I would have to tell you somethin'."

"I understand," Rhodes stated blandly, and James could tell it was the same sort of understanding he, himself, had had only an hour or so before—professional understanding, but brimming with personal emotions, none of which were understanding.

The group remaining in the conference room started to work on the various projects Captain Danvers tasked them with, and James made sure to keep as fully plugged into his tablet as he could be, if for no other reason, than to fend off whatever Steve was brewing in his mind about the entire situation. It was about as quiet as a conference room with people in it could be, fingers tapping on keyboards, soft exhales and louder cusses, the soft crackling of burning tobacco as James violated every fire safety law the compound provided. 

There would, unfortunately, be nothing of note until they could get access to the camera; James never felt more restless, regardless of how he was slowly stripping away everything other than what was needed for the mission—that thought process seemed to work well for both his weaponry situation and his psychological situation. He cracked his knuckles, stubbing out the butt of his half-smoked, half-ashed cigarette on his boot before squeezing the last few bits of tobacco out, blowing the remaining smoke out through the filter, and pocketing the filter until he could find an appropriate trash can. 

A ping went through the room and the feed from FRIDAY's projection clicked on. Almost as one unit, they turned towards a focussing image of a blue-lit, highly bruised, Tony Stark. Across the rest of the screens, code, telemetry, location and security services streamed into view, most of them flashing faster than the eye could comprehend; James, being both more attuned to fast intake of information and being more than just a baseline human, caught more than the average person would have, but to his mostly untrained eyes, most of it still came out as gibberish—given a few hours and a quiet room, James might be able to figure out what a majority of it meant, but he, under no circumstances, felt as though he actually lit a candle in comparison to a lot of the people in this very room, let alone most of the people he knew. 

Despite his ignorance, no one would be able to do what he was currently gearing up for, and despite the almost perverse nature of the feeling, a curl of pride settled itself into his stomach, the first shot of vodka after coming in from the snow, the first cigarette in the morning, the first flush of arousal after a lingering kiss. James' eyes darkened, the familiar heady sensation of a challenge lurching up from his bones and into his muscles with an alacrity that defied convention—it felt like, after a decade of almost being full, he finally managed to get that final bite. 

James lit another cigarette and watched as the data continued on.

* * *

_He knew that there had to be some sort of technology in the room, some way that his assailants could see what he was doing, but for the life of him he just could not find it in the almost darkness that his arc reactor oh-so-helpfully provided him._

_And then he felt it._

_A shiver went up his spine, this time along with the hairs on the back of his neck—he turned around slightly, staring at the now small red light blinking in the corner of the room._

_That would do—that would more than do._

_Taking a leap, blowing gently onto his left hand midair, he touched what was now revealed to be a pane of glass on the upper corner of the room with his fingertips, white with chill._

_“Hello.”_

_He waved at the camera, back with two feet on the floor, and watched the glass fog over with the residue of frost he had left._

_“You should be having a technical difficulty right about now._

_“Come on in and let's talk about it, you know, mano a mano, we do as men do, a duel at dawn, parlay, whatever.”_

_A cracking sound coming from the glass casing had his head tilting, a small, almost eerie smirk on his face as the frost slowly dissipated._

_“How 'bout it, folks? I'm a hot goddamn commodity here, as I'm sure you know.”_

_And that was how you took a ball in your court and fucking obliterated someone with it._

### 

"I will be a little God in my small way."  
-Sylvia Plath

### 

Between Captain Danvers, Colonel Rhodes, Steve, FRIDAY, the Widow, and himself, it only took the broadside of two hours to finalize their mission parameters—within those two hours, they had been subject to watching the increasingly aggressive methods of information gathering, Tony's taunting serving as both a distraction and a natural antagonist to whatever the offshoot HYDRA group had in store for the man. 

“This just might work.” It was the sentiment that everyone in the room had been feeling, their bases covered as best as they could be, with contingency plans in place—James had absolutely no doubt in his mind that at some point, something would go so sideways that he would have to imagine an entirely new plan on the go, the devolution of highly developed to on-the-fly most likely to be a cause of contention when out of HYDRA's frying pan and into Danvers' fire—but saying it out loud could be nothing less than a jinx; judging by the couple of winces, he wasn't the only one susceptible to the superstition. 

“What? What'd I do?” 

“Nothing, FRI, don't worry about it.” Rhodes waved it away, before turning to face Danvers. “Should we contact the rest now, or are we waiting on this plan for...” 

The end of his statement was a nod towards the screen at the side of the room, showing the edge of Tony's legs—the only parts showing as he sat in the corner of the room the camera was closest to. A crack in the camera lens widened slightly after a tendril of ice spread through what was already damaged—a slow process, but one that James believed Tony thought necessary to contrive and implement his own escape plan. Which... 

“Tony's already in the middle of whatever plan he has going on there.” 

Rhodes, obviously having had thought about this very scenario—having _experienced_ this very scenario, albeit in disparate circumstances—posed the issue before James could proffer his own, markedly similar statement to the room. 

“Yes, which _will_ hinder our progress—Barnes' progress,” Danvers said, amending her statement as she nodded towards James, who, to his own benefit, nodded magnanimously in return. 

“But yeah, go ahead and contact everyone.” She paused, cocking her head as the crack grew by millimeters, FRIDAY tracking the progress with a glee that James found a kinship in, to his own. “I want to debrief in an hour, if possible.

“Actually.” Rhodes stopped in the middle of his turn-about, waiting for Danvers to amend her statement, and James listened in with half of an ear whilst checking FRIDAY's newest schematics for the new rifle he had helped develop—Tony had given his permission for the fabrication with ease, waving away James' concern with nothing more than a flippant scoff and the detritus on the worktable behind him, bits and pieces of weaponry for the Avengers in plain view, waiting to be enhanced upon; that, and the half-smile Tony threw FRIDAY as she expounded on her need to improve whatever suggestions James made, was the moment when James realized that he actually, genuinely cared for Tony Stark, because it couldn't have been anything else, the way his fingers warmed and the curl of flame always in his chest stoked itself just that little bit brighter. “Romanoff, you call everyone; Rhodes, I need you here to tell us what the fuck Stark's doing with this. 

“Or,” she continued ruefully at seeing the thin set of Rhodes' lips, “what you think he could be doing.”

Romanova, more than a little incensed at what she interpreted as a dismissal—which, in her defense, it most likely was; Romanova, despite her more than adequate expertise in the finer points of espionage and extraction, hadn't been able to offer much more than cursory information and experience in the course of the meeting, thus _would_ be the one sent to gather the backup, as opposed to Rhodes who, by virtue of being Tony's best friend and the most stubborn man on the planet when concerning him, was integral to contriving this extraction—took a minute before stalking out of the room, not wanting, James assumed, to miss out on whatever information might be shared in her absence. 

“Do you want to print it up, FRIDAY?” he asked as he completed his last scour of the schematics. It looked good, lightweight and powerful—James was more than a little bit suspicious that Tony's hand was somewhere in the middle of all of it, because some of the changes made were not things that a novice in weaponry would make, a definition and refinement that bespoke of years of handling weapons with a proficiency that piqued James'... well, his everything, really, but most notably his fixated interest—and James couldn't help but want to test run it out on a handful of HYDRA goons. 

“The fabrication'll take too long for this mission,” FRIDAY replied, the genuine regret in her tone still so fascinating to hear even after getting the basic run-through, the elementary run-through, and was working on the mechanics of the more intermediate aspects of her core systems—he knew he would never learn everything about the AI, a secret that Tony would take to his grave, but what he did know was so beyond the pale, he couldn't imagine how there were people who felt as though FRIDAY were an abomination rather than just another person. “Sorry, Jimothy, maybe next time.” 

A long-paced stride started from the other end of the room, and James tensed up, knowing that he couldn't get away from his own oldest friend's recriminations, but also knowing that Steve talking to him when he was getting prepared for a mission would result in nothing less than a clusterfuck and a handful of regrets. He weighed his options, the seconds trickling by as Steve got closer, and finally stood up, making his sure his darkening gaze assessed the threat level of the other man; Steve faltered in making his way over to where James had sequestered himself with a tablet and FRIDAY and James was hard-pressed to not smirk—he was on the edge right now, and wouldn't make it to either side until he had finished what needed to be done, and he needed Steve to know that, to know that even after two years, he wasn't the man that fell, wasn't the man that had been picked up, wasn't anything other than the amalgamation of whatever parts he managed to retain through the gaping voids that he had been. Steve, broadening himself out in marked resolve, continued his way to James. In response, James lit a third cigarette with his fingertips, watching as Steve tracked his movements with the sort of horrified fascination that James bet Maximoff had seen when the man had witnessed her powers and realized they came from a twisted experimentation that had always wrecked more than it created. 

“What can I help you with?” he asked, idly noticing the flinch at the slightly accented question. James didn't know what Steve honestly expected sometimes—Brooklyn might have been his life at one point, but over the decades, despite his own mental qualms at the thought, Russia and the east had become his homeland, his mother and father, and though he hated his time there, in the cold he still found a nostalgia that the similarly crumbling infrastructure of New York could never produce—but he supposed it was in the same way that James expected to see a skinny runt whose mouth was bigger than his brains, and instead got a desperate captain, displaced from time in a way that even James couldn't understand—he, at least, was able to see the fast nature of the carousel of progress, was able to remember what came before and during and after and was able to ease into the 21st century with a leg-up on the other man. 

“Why're you doing this?” 

James blinked, blinked again, lit a second cigarette, handed it to Steve, and blinked a third time. Steve moved to the other side of the window and took a couple of puffs, glancing around the room as though everyone in it didn't already know his habit. The two of them settled, but James let the silence linger between them for a few more moments, letting Steve's restless jittering settle to minute levels before answering. 

“Because it is Tony, and I cannot imagine doing anything else.” 

“Oh.” Steve's exhalation came out with a lungful of smoke and James waited, motionless, as the other man processed his words. “So you, uh, you two uh...” 

A pause as Steve let the stuttered start stand in the air. James, despite the false start, understood what Steve was trying to ask. 

“I do not know, we shall see.” He twisted his lips up in a modicum of a smirk. “We have gotten to this point, despite our pasts, so future relations can only be presumed.” 

“Yeah, but you've gotten there.” Steve didn't have to say the 'and I haven't', James heard it in the hitch in his voice, but he pointedly did not respond to the bid in his statement—no matter his physical presence, he was only the peripheral to Steve and Tony's issues, and he couldn't pretend to understand the complexity that went into the conflict between the two men. And from what he did understand? Well, it was emotional and complicated and James couldn't imagine making some of the decisions that were made, but maybe that's why the universe didn't let him be a part of it, that it needed to be done and said and over with so they could all be here, broken and aching and resilient, for the future. 

And most likely a bunch of bullshit designed by his own subconscious to make himself feel better about his utter indecisiveness—choice was still a strange and brutal mistress, apt to blind him when he needed sight and free him when he needed constraint. 

“I did,” he replied—confident when he most likely should have been circumspect. It was a split-second decision that moved him to speak, but even in Steve's grimace, he couldn't help but feel it necessary; if nothing else, the statement allowed him to belay anything more Steve might have said in his silence, allowed him to tacitly take his previous assertion and run with it—with everyone together again there were technically no sides, but it seemed that everyone couldn't stop themselves from choosing them anyway, and James couldn't help but do the same; there were no sides, but James might have, by his attentions and admissions, chosen one regardless. 

“It can still be someone else.” 

“It cannot.” A pause. “I would not want it to be.” 

Steve's gaze sharpened, a hint of steel in his eyes that bespoke of a history James was not privy to, and he tilted his head in response. 

“I am going to finish preparing—soon the rest will be here and Captain Danvers, Rhodes, and I will be forced to go over our plan for a fourth time.” 

“With everyone questioning you.” 

“For entirely too long, yes.” 

The years fell away and they grinned at one another—it was heat from the last drag of his cigarette that brought the years back to where they were, and James focused in on the new rotations that had beeped onto his tablet; he was sure that FRIDAY did not have to give him the auditory cue, but he also didn't fault her for it. Nothing new, but James didn't know if that was a good thing or not. 

“If the rotations are staying the same, then we must assume that whatever Tony did, did not work or has not made an impact as of yet.” 

Steve's countenance neutralized and he nodded, but not quite in agreement. James scoffed, internal and unhelpful. “I dunno, maybe. Should I tell—?”

James shook his head and handed his little pile of cigarette butts for Steve to deal with. “I will do so.” He paused. “Unless you have anything of particular note to say.” 

It was a statement—James knew that Steve didn't. 

“Steve?” 

“Yeah, Buck?” 

“Good hunting.”

Steve blinked. 

James was halfway across the room before he heard a 'good hunting' back.

* * *

_He sat back down with a wince, tonguing his back left molar to test its strength—still strong, despite the blood and swelling now pooled around the affected area. The guards who had come down had done so with retractable ladders, and made sure that he was incapacitated before entering or leaving; it was highly efficient, and he couldn't help the small trickle of concern that, maybe, he wasn't fully up to making his escape._

_Glancing down to where he had been tapping idly at his reactor, he contemplated the beginnings of a secondary plan. Assuming he was going at this entire thing alone—for the first time in awhile, he knew he most likely was not, but he had to assume as such, for ease—he had to find a way to get himself out of the room; once he could get out of the oubliette, then it would be easy._

_There was silence for a minute as he contemplated his newest trial, the concussion making his thought process harder and more muddled than usual. The faint glow of the reactor lit his dim surroundings, and he sighed, tapping out an idle rhythm on the edge of the metal._

_This was most certainly not his best day._

* * *

A rumble went through the subway car and James looked up as the A train slowed to a screeching halt. The complaints of passengers started up before the brakes had been deployed, only increasing as the lights turned off in emergency shut-down; commotion was heard as irate passengers bumped into everything and everyone, collecting their belongings and their people into little packets of snarling, protective city-dwellers—New York at its finest, and James couldn't help the small pang of fondness that their reactions caused. Rustling and opening a window wasn't heard over the din, and if anyone noticed—when the lights came back on only moments after James had made his way to the top of the subway car— that the man with the backpack glowering in the corner was gone? Well, they must have been mistaken somewhere along the line. 

“45 seconds,” FRIDAY chirped into James' earpiece, and he grunted his acknowledgment, determining that ten of those seconds were destined to only become buffer. 

He rolled off the end of the subway train, making sure that the conductors were fully engaged in correcting their sudden electrical problem, and slid up to the maintenance hatch. Jimmy-rigging the door open was embarrassingly easy, and he actually had more of a difficult time closing it up properly than he did getting into the dull-lit room—this must have been the spot, then, because to all official city markings, this was a non-functional maintenance room, and last time James had checked, non-functional meant unpowered and run-down, not well-organized with small emergency lighting strips running the length of the floor. 

“And there are no cameras here?” James asked, his own run-through of the room giving him nothing of particular note. 

“Not until the next room,” FRIDAY confirmed promptly, “but there's been a rotation change.” 

James paused for a half of a second in putting together his rifle before nodding, finishing his task and moving over to where a half-hidden door indicated the tunnel's newer, more insidious second-life—or, if Tony were here, something about a rapidly decaying half-life where the decay was James' fist.

“Shall I then proceed to Bravo?” he asked, more rhetorically than anything else; with a changing rotation—Tony's own plan sliding into its place, James couldn't help but to assume, exasperation and a reluctant fondness fighting for dominance in a situation where either and/or both of those emotions were in vain effort to the mindset he needed in order to sustain a pragmatic approach to the situation—the plan that the Avengers had put into place would bear no fruit. Their secondary plan, the one that James had from the beginning honestly thought would be the one they ended up deploying, was more of a brute-force tactic than the more adroit ones he had recently found a certain level of gratification in—it was more likely, however, to have a chance at actually succeeding at this point than continuing along with their primary in hopes that it would still work. 

“That might be best—seems none'a them took the bait from the others' locations.” 

James shrugged, not caring that no one could actually see him, but his 'hard to bait what the fisherman already knew' was lower than the insouciant motion he gave along with it. 

“Captain?” he asked, wanting verbal confirmation from Danvers before executing the change in plans—in some ways, he disliked having to go through the motions of what he knew was going to occur, but in others, having the check against his own decision-making was more than a little bit of a good and necessary thing. 

“Confirmed—initiate secondary plan.” Danvers, all business on the other end of the comm, replied in prompt military clarity, and James felt his spine stiffen up that last centimetre at the tone—this plan was his and his alone, no way to easily get backup into the building without making the situation bigger than was necessary. 

“Understood.” 

“Good hunting, Sergeant.” 

“You too,” he replied, turning the safety off of his rifle as he moved in front of the door. “I am now going silent, I will see you all on the other side.”

* * *

“So you will not help me on my mission, then?” James asked, leaning in close enough to the young HYDRA agent that he could feel the man's uneven breath against his face. “I find that highly disappointing as you look like a reasonable young man who would know that helping me might, in fact, save his own miserable life whilst not working with me would...” he let himself linger on that for a moment, a small 'chhk' interrupting the silence as his switchblade opened a few millimetres away from the eye of the agent, “well, would for sure end it."

He leaned into the man more, the small flail of terror in the man's legs only serving James to hold him down further, and let his voice drop to a dark croon. 

“I have heard that HYDRA now uses ocular locks—it has been many years since I have had to take out an eye with such precision, and so I look forward to the practice.” 

The sound of the young man's bladder relieving itself went through the space, and James smiled, serene, into the eyes his blade was drifting ever closer to. 

“I'll help, oh God, I'll help you! Just please, please, please don't kill me, I didn't do anything wrong I was just doing my job, oh God, please don't kill me, I'll help you with whatever you want I just want to live, please—” 

“Shhhhhhh,” James interrupted, moving the blade down the young man's cheek in a depraved caress, “be silent now and only answer the questions I pose. Nod to show that you understand my words.” 

The man nodded. 

“Very good. Now tell me, do you know where Tony Stark is?” 

A gulp. “Yeah.” 

James eased a little off of the HYDRA agent, giving the young man a modicum of comfort that would ensure his continued compliance. “Elaborate.” 

“It's a trapdoor accessible though the top, like those underground French prisons, and, uh,” the man licked his lips and grimaced as the switchblade nicked his cheek, “the lead agents used retractable ladders.”

“And this is the _only_ way in?” 

“On this level? Yeah..." 

James tsk'd and the man's breathing stuttered in his chest; he could almost smell his terror.

“But! There's an old passageway two floors down, but we got rid of that once we finished building the room—it's bricked up now.” 

“It is still accessible?” 

The man shrugged. “If you wanna go through eight feet of brick, yeah, sure.” 

James nodded, thinking to himself for a moment, before turning to the other man, slowly taking the switchblade away from his face in a show—the man bought it. 

“What is happening now—the rotations are different.” 

“I dunno,” the man denied hotly, “I was sent here and told to stay, and so I've been here, staying.” He paused and James tilted his head. 

“What?” 

“My boss'll be coming back in ten minutes.” 

James smiled. He always liked it when he got the spinless ones—they always liked to give more information than he asked for, and they were never usually particularly adept liars. 

“Then we shall be faster,” he promised gently, watching as the man eased a little more into what he assumed was his continued survival. 

“You will open the doors for me, yes? If you do it right now, no one shall ever know and I will already be gone by the time your boss finishes his smoking break.” 

A shaky breath. “Okay. I need to sit up, though.” 

He let the man up and into the chair that James had forcibly removed him from no less than five minutes before, watching over his shoulder as all of the little lights on the console went from red to green with the clack of a keyboard and the muttered exhalations of the HYDRA agent. There was a pause, and James looked down at where the man's hands were hovering over the button to unlock the door to the entrance of the facility. 

“Do not worry,” he murmured, placing his hand gently on top of the man's so they clicked the button together in a swift motion, “I will not hurt you anymore.” 

“I need to leave now,” the man replied, obviously just now having had realized that by helping James he could no longer trust his organization to not kill him the moment they figured out who was the one to get their former assassin into the building. 

“No,” James answered, shaking his head as he brought his hand up the man's arm and onto his shoulder, left hand joining its brother “you will be staying here. 

It will be okay, just relax.” 

James made sure that, as he twisted the man's neck, it wouldn't hurt—he had, after all, given his word. The body slumped down and James foraged for his weaponry and miscellany in quick motions, before making his way out of the room, the door to which had been more than helpfully opened for him. In his head, the faint strains of Shostakovitch echoed and he allowed himself to breathe.

* * *

_This was the worst plan he had concocted in a long while, and what could only be the icing on the cake, it also seemed to be the only conceivable option open to him. He had been hoping that his fail-safe wouldn't have to actually be used, but he supposed that was the point of a fail-safe in the first place—you didn't have to like them, but they were meant to save you when nothing else could. And even though he knew that there was a plan forming in the Avengers in how to get him out, he also knew that he didn't know when or how or in what condition he would be when the time came; they were planning, but he couldn't trust it._

_“Okay.”_

_His voice was a little strangled, and he knew that movement most likely stopped from wherever they were listening in. “Okay you've left me no choice.”_

_Making sure to project his motions, he reached for his arc reactor in full view of the camera and placed his fingers around the rim. He stared up at the blinking light, a small smirk on his face as his fingertips pressed into the sides—a small vibration indicated that his DNA lock had been accepted._

_“I made an upgrade on this,” he began idly, disengaging the inner rim from the outer rim, hearing the small hydraulic decompression before the reactor itself popped up a few millimeters, giving Tony's fingers just enough room to grasp the edges, “because I figure if it's outta my chest, it's no good for anyone, especially for me.”_

_A shrug indicated his nonchalance and he suppressed a flinch as he took the reactor fully out of his chest, ignoring the surprising heft of it in his hand as he fingered the wire attaching it to its casing. “It'll start the countdown to self-destruct as soon as I cut the wire, and once I take it out it can't be put back in.”_

_He paused, imagining he could hear the rushed motions of the HYDRA agents as they prepared to go down to where he was, and pulled the wire out._

_Showing the camera the arc reactor—the center of it now at an ominous 14:53, 14:52, 14:51—he let it drop to the floor after he was sure they got the full picture._

_“Better get me up and outta here—I know you have more planned for me, after all, and I might just be in the throes of death.”_

_He sat down against the wall, out of breath in what could only have been a psychosomatic response to the removal of the reactor._

_“14:32,” he whispered, poking at the casing and hoping that this didn't spectacularly fuck up in his face._

_A light came from above and he grinned as he looked up. Perfect._

_“Hey—thought you might be coming back down.”_

* * *

The bricked in passage was a lot harder to excavate than James had believed, even with the weird sonic device he still didn't understand fully—the purpose of the device, as far as he knew, was to obliterate most things in its path, brick and mortar included. By the time he could feel air through the brick—only one more pass and he would be through to the other side—almost fifteen minutes had passed. 

A clatter interrupted his work, and a HYDRA agent popped their head into the passage that James had made, obviously unawares that it had not always been there. 

“Don't know if you heard, but you better get outta the building,” the agent stated before moving on, their gaze nowhere near actually taking in James and knowing who he was in relation to who they were and how their goals and aims had diverged oh so long ago. 

What in God's name had Tony done? James turned his comm on. 

“—ow if you're there, but we definitely have a situation.” 

“Yes,” James responded, going through the last pass with his weapon, before taking cover and waiting for the dust to settle so he could go into the room rifle first. There was a burst of static—FRIDAY sighing. “Do you know—?”

“Boss took out the reactor and then they took him.” 

James froze and every bit of training, both from the military and from HYDRA, escaped him in a rush of _heat_. He knew that entering the room at this point would do nothing, that it had already been abandoned for wherever they were taking Tony next, but he still found himself helpless to do anything other than step through the threshold and into where he knew Tony had just been minutes before.

Looking up to where the agents had neglected to pull the ladder back up in whatever haste they imagined themselves to be in, he slowly traced his eyes down, down, down, until he noticed the glow of the arc reactor on the floor, wire hanging limply to its side. He picked it up gently with his left hand and, despite all of his training telling him otherwise, he dropped his rifle in order to get his right hand on it as well; the reactor was heavier than he had expected and he couldn't help the flinch as he brought it closer to his face, the soft glow half shrouded by his palms, and turned it over. The countdown, in its final seconds, ticked away before James could fully understand what they meant. 

The light from the reactor went out.

* * *

_An explosion rocked the building._

_Tony huffed out a laugh, watched the HYDRA agents fall to the ground, and then—quite against his will—passed out._

### 

"I do not see the world at all; I invent it."  
-Franz Kafka

### 

His ears rang for a full minute after the concussion grenade went off, only abetting as he let out a couple of 'mwap's to clear them out. Thankful for the neurotransmitters—or something like that, James was a science enthusiast, but not a science savant—that had been installed in all of the Avengers for exactly this sort of technology, he pocketed the now useless arc reactor and shook off where his muscles had all bunched in response to the explosion. 

“FRIDAY?” he asked, letting out a cuss as only static answered his question; maybe it was from being in the room—the agents blocking all signals on a frequency other than their own—or maybe it was from the grenade, but either way, until he could get in contact again, the rest of this was up to him. 

And maybe Tony wouldn't need a rescue, after all. It wasn't a small thought, because James was more than aware that whatever he had just been in the middle of was part of Tony's plan, but he still couldn't help but be worried at having a significant portion of what made up the man's chest in his pants pocket. Maybe he wouldn't need a rescue, but he sure as hell would get one anyways. 

James muttered to himself, a mix of Russian and English that didn't amount to much of anything, as he hauled himself up the six feet above the ground the retractable ladder hung. He climbed, swiftly, to the point of egress, popped out through the top of the ladder into the basement room of the building that the Avengers had been keeping an eye on. A couple of unconscious agents littered the floor like detritus and James only hesitated for a few seconds, weighing his options, before he went over to each one and shot them once each through the head; the stench of bodily functions soon pervaded the air and James went on, following the haphazard trail he was sure had been left by harried HYDRA agents whilst moving Tony. 

The hallways around him were silent, most of the men and women having had left the building in the minutes before; the last sign of this exodus was a slowly strobing red light, casting shadows on the various bits of rubbish that lined James' path—every now and again a clinking was heard as abandoned supplies fell from their precarious perches. Some of the agents had been caught in the explosion, and were insensate on the floor in positions that James figured would feel a little more comfortable in death—he was happy to take the extra seconds and take care of that for them. 

At a t-junction, James cocked his head and reviewed the schematics of the building in his mind; left would take him up and out of the building, but right would take him into more corridors that he knew housed medical facilities. The physical symptoms would only last for awhile longer, less time in some people's physiology than others, and after only a moment more of deliberation—would they risk the explosion to keep Tony alive after the reactor coming out, or would they chance the time it took to get him to a secondary location because they didn't know the type of explosion it was? Because Tony wouldn't tell them, and even _they_ knew that in dealings with Tony Stark, one could only presume lethal force.

* * *

The first thing he heard was from the top of the stairwell he was on the bottom of—a sort of choked groan, as though coming out of a concussed sleep, echoed easily down to where James was standing, poking the tip of his boot at the splayed HYDRA agent blocking the first couple of steps; the man's neck lolled at an angle that usually meant death, and the half-open eyes only confirmed that theory. James flicked the safety off the handgun he was now using, the rifle being both useless in this tube and more than a little overkill, and with his right fingers sparked up a small light—dimmer than the emergency lights that flickered on and off, but he would prefer to have a steady source of light rather than an unpredictable one. Another grunt started James' progress up the stairs, but this time he did not take the extra seconds in order to fully put down the agents littering the stairwell. 

“Is he ali—?”

James rounded the corner, took in the brunet struggling to stand up, and shot the man. 

The now dead HYDRA agent fell to his knees, onto his side, and with a dull 'thud' the half of his skull still intact hit the floor. 

Beyond him lay a pale, prone Tony Stark. 

He kicked the man's body down the stairs, making room to kneel next to Tony—it took James longer than it should have to notice the uneven movements of Tony's chest, because he couldn't help but be totally focused on the gaping hole in the middle of the man's sternum; it was different, knowing something and actually seeing it for yourself. Bizarrely—James was the last person to tell you he had a weak stomach—a swell of nausea and bile rose to the top of his esophagus, and he had to physically swallow back his vomit. 

Jesus Christ, how was he still alive? How did he survive in the first place, let alone flying a metal suit into battle on what seemed like a weekly basis? 

Despite seeing the breaths, James still reached down for a pulse on Tony's carotid artery—tachy. He took a breath. 

“Tony,” he stated, shaking the man's shoulder in a bid to wake him. 

“FRIDAY,” he said after a moment of silence, Tony unresponsive. 

Static for a moment, but then a ping as though FRIDAY had managed to track his location. “Well, I dunno _what_ HYDRA was doin' with all'a that, but I got you now, Jimothy.” 

“Good show, woman,” James replied, warming up his fingertips to just the point of scalding, only to place them directly onto Tony's skin—the burn, if the man weren't deeply under, should shock him awake. 

A gasp, drawing breath after drowning, then a clenched scream interrupted whatever FRIDAY was saying to him and James did a double-take as he saw Tony's body spasm before setting itself in a grotesque rictus that lasted for too long for anyone's continued good physicality—any skin close to bone turned white with bloodlessness, and James could hear the creaking of bones, joints, muscles, and sinew flex to proportions unnatural for the living human body. 

Tony's eyes flew open and the scream turned full-fledged as he regained control of his seized body all at once; his hand flew down, slapping the edge of James' arm as it tried to dig itself into the floor beneath him, uncontrolled ice running both up Tony's arm and down onto where he was gripping debris. James, despite probably knowing better, put his left hand over where Tony's was scrabbling for some sort of purchase. 

“It is okay,” he stated, “and you will be okay. But, Tony, you must help the both of us and come back into yourself, yes?” 

A confused look entered Tony's eye as James helped him sit up with his other arm, and he barely had time to point Tony's face down to the other side before the man deposited whatever had been in his stomach. 

“Good,” James stated, patting the top of Tony's head in soothing motions, “you will dispose of this and then you will walk out of here on your own two feet, yes?” 

“Wouldn't—” Tony's guttural statement was cut off by him spitting onto the floor, “wouldn't mind a hand though.” 

“And that is what I am here for.” 

He paused as they gathered themselves to their feet, Tony glancing around at his surroundings. 

“What happened?” 

“I would like to ask the same as you—do you need hospital?” 

James, of course, couldn't help but indicate to where Tony's arc reactor was currently non-existent, and Tony shot him a half-grin in reply. 

“Bio-technical fail-safe—like Extremis, but situated into the rim of the new reactor. It was set to go off when I removed the reactor in a certain way.” Tony paused and shrugged. “I didn't want Extremis, not really, but I also knew that having this,” he indicated down and tapped the rim, “in my chest could only end badly if I didn't do something about it. 

“So it's, you know, the best of both worlds, as it were, at least until the time of reckoning or whatever came.” 

“Wow.” 

“Did you understand any of that?” 

“I am not certain.” 

Tony laughed, harsh in the face of what he had only moments before put his throat through. James, left arm secured around Tony's waist, opened the door to the first floor—deserted. 

“Wow, I really _can_ clear a room,” Tony remarked, straightening up with every step, as though the more he used his newly improved body, the less his injuries seemed to hinder him—James believed that most of what Tony had gone through had to do entirely with his own devices, than anything HYDRA did, except for being the facilitator of the entire business. 

“FRIDAY, vehicle?” 

“Waitin' at the door,” she confirmed, and both James and Tony nodded. James looked at Tony, who shouldn't have been able to hear FRIDAY, but all he got was a smirk. 

“So...” Tony began, “how many HYDRA goons di'ya kill in your pursuit of me?” 

“More than someone with honor would have, but less than a homicidal maniac would have.” He paused. “I did start humming a little though, so...” 

“So it's a toss-up?” 

“Something like that, yes.” 

Tony grabbed a water bottle from the welcome center of the business the building on the sign purported it to be and guzzled it down quickly, James doing the same with his own. 

“Hey, so there's probably a change of clothes in the car, and I'm starved. You wanna just get something to eat?” 

James turned to look at Tony, tilted his head at the slight flush high on the man's cheeks, and grinned, almost feral—Tony, from how he leaned just a slightest bit closer, liked what he saw. 

“My lovely Tony, I hope you do not believe that I will willingly let you get away from me?” 

He leaned in, eyes darkening at Tony's sharp grin back. 

“Oh, babe—I could definitely say the same.” 

/

**Author's Note:**

> Any questions/concerns/concrit, feel free to hit me up in the comments or contact me at: newyorktopaloalto@mail.com


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